“The demonstrators, who had planned to voice their grievances in the lobby of the building, began chanting “if we had money, they’d let us in!””

Yesterday afternoon, a group of about seventy-five students mobilized at the OccupyDC camp at McPherson Square to raise the issue of crushing student debt. The average student, facing grim job prospects in the current economy, is graduating with at least $24,000 of debt.

The students and recent graduates then marched several blocks through DC to the lobbying headquarters of student loan giant Sallie Mae. As students posted letters and stories about their own debt on the walls of the building, a phalanx of police officers and security guards blocked anyone from entering the building.

The demonstrators, who had planned to voice their grievances in the lobby of the building, began chanting “if we had money, they’d let us in!” As the crowd swelled outside the Sallie Mae office at 7th Street and Pennsylvanie Avenue, security officers continued to block protesters from entering. The peaceful crowd said they only wanted to air their grievances with a representative from Sallie Mae, but were rebuffed.

The demonstrators formed a human chain and said they didn’t want to see people leave without talking to them about student debt. Eventually, police escorted employees out of the building, and demonstrators verbally warned eachother against the use of any violence or harassment against Sallie Mae staffers.

Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student lender, has spent millions lobbying Congress to continue massive government subsidies to private lenders. Worse, Sallie Mae has lobbied aggressively, using money received from students, to allow private lenders to use predatory practices, including hidden fees.

DC News

With fewer than a dozen words Monday, President Barack Obama made his most definitive statement to date in favor of District statehood, delighting both loyal supporters and longtime advocates who have questioned his commitment to D.C. voting rights.
During a town hall-style event at a public school in Northwest Washington, Obama was asked about his opinion on statehood — something that has been the ultimate but elusive goal of voting-rights activists for four decades.
“I’m in D.C., so I’m for it,” Obama said to laughter and applause, according to a White House...

Legalizing weed may be the answer to Congress's national budget crisis as activists push for a system where weed is taxed.
As U.S. lawmakers look for ways to balance the national budget, a new bill formally introduced to the D.C. council this week may provide the answer as a major source of tax revenue.
The bill aims to legalize possession of marijuana for adults over 21, regulate sale and licensing and tax the transactions in order to help generate much-needed tax revenue in the nation's capital.
Initiated by Councilman David Grosso, the bill...

Teachers and education activists from near and far descended on the Department of Education in Washington D.C. this weekend to announce their "war cry" against the corporate-based school reform movement and its stranglehold on public education.
Protesters at the second annual Occupy the Department of Education, which took place from April 4-7, are trying to draw attention to the rampant privatization of public education which has benefited greatly from President Obama's Race to the Top initiative, as well as the rash of public school closures—most notably in Chicago, Washington D.C. and...

Remember when McPherson Square was full of tents? Almost a year after the Occupy movement first came to town -- and some seven months since Occupy DC's controversial, reportedly rat-infested encampment came down -- you can relive the whole maddening and compelling experience while eating vegan nachos.
If you've missed watching people get arrested while chanting about the need for campaign-finance reform, you'll want to check out "American Autumn: an Occudoc," a documentary about the Occupy movement's early days that will be screening from 7-10 p.m. at Busboys and...

MrLowe, of Glenn Dale, Maryland, attended and participated in a protest held at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. 'The photo depicts six young African American women, each wearing matching red hoodies with a portrait of Trayvon Martin on the back. Their backs are turned toward the camera with their heads bowed and their fists raised in the air - an iconic gesture made immortal during the civil rights era of the 1960s and intimately familiar to African Americans every since,' he says. He...

Actor George Clooney has been arrested in Washington during a protest at the Sudanese Embassy, just two days after dining with the president at a White House state dinner and testifying before Congress about a mounting humanitarian crisis in the African country.
Also arrested were two Democratic members of Congress – Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern and Virginia Rep. Jim Moran – Clooney’s father, Nick, NAACP president Ben Jealous and Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
The men were arrested by the Secret Service, which protects the...

A Superior Court Judge in the District of Columbia slammed the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for submitting “transparently false” affidavits in an unsuccessful effort to defeat a lawsuit brought by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) that demands that the MPD disclose its orders and policies.
Judge Judith N. Macaluso ruled in favor of the PCJF lawsuit forcing the MPD to release documents that it has spent years concealing and refusing to disclose. The PCJF's litigation has resulted in the largest and...

The two Americas came face to face briefly Friday afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. While several thousand conservatives thronged the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel, several hundred progressive unionists marched up to the hotel’s entrance, banging drums, carrying signs like “CPAC: Conservatives Pleasing America’s Corporations” and chanting “We are the 99 percent.” As they were turned back by police and hotel security, conference participants watched, often with disdain.
“Get a job,” shouted one conservative. “I’ve got a job,” one...

Invoking the ministry of Jesus and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as advocates for the poorest and most vulnerable of their societies, prominent African-American clergy members Wednesday joined the Occupy Wall St. movement, announcing a day of action in Washington D.C. on Jan. 16, the King holiday.
Dubbed “Occupy the Dream,” the group is led by Dr. Benjamin Chavis and Dr. Jamal Bryant of Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, Maryland.
Chavis said that if Dr. King were alive today he would have been a part of...

As the Southern state votes on an extreme anti-abortion (and anti-contraception) constitutional amendment, congressional Republicans want to take the plan national.
On Tuesday, voters in Mississippi will head to the polls to vote on an amendment to the state Constitution that would designate inseminated human eggs as legal persons from the "moment of fertilization." This would set up a challenge to Roe v. Wade and could lead to outlawing many forms of birth control. In Mississippi, the proposed amendment has created a political firestorm that's being closely...

“We don’t know how many people it takes to encircle the White House, but we’re about to find out,” Bill McKibben told a crowd of over 12,000 gathered in Lafayette Square on Sunday afternoon.
Such a prospect would have been hard to imagine eleven weeks earlier, when McKibben was standing in the same park with no more than a hundred people listening. It was the first day of what would become a two-week long campaign of mass civil disobedience targeting the planned construction...

Time was when David Koch could bring his Americans for Prosperity Foundation convention to our nation's capital, and conventioneers could feel pretty secure in the notion that Washington, D.C., was theirs for the taking. No longer.
The triumphant glow of hagiography that usually marks the convention's annual Ronald Reagan tribute dinner tonight gave way to the heat of confrontation with the Occupy D.C. movement. Apparently, the AFP Foundation was prepared for shenanigans, as there seemed to be a readily available cadre of Metropolitan...

“The demonstrators, who had planned to voice their grievances in the lobby of the building, began chanting “if we had money, they’d let us in!””
Yesterday afternoon, a group of about seventy-five students mobilized at the OccupyDC camp at McPherson Square to raise the issue of crushing student debt. The average student, facing grim job prospects in the current economy, is graduating with at least $24,000 of debt.
The students and recent graduates then marched several blocks through DC to the lobbying headquarters of student loan giant Sallie...

Friday was a good day for waking up in Freedom Plaza and for occupying the headquarters of the drone manufacturers. Fast forward to minute 44 on this video http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17729809 Their intelligence about which way we were coming from was no better at keeping us out of their building than the CIA's intelligence is at making sure the "right" people are murdered with the drones.
Friday was a good day for marching to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and talking about his opposition to...

Civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory spoke at the rally, saying the demonstrators reminded him of the young anti-war protesters in the late 1960s, who were emboldened by the civil rights protests.
A sun-soaked noon rally within blocks of the White House brought out hundreds of protesters Thursday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War.
On Freedom Square, sign-carrying demonstrators banged drums, sang and cheered a series of fiery speeches by anti-war activists, who decried the federal government's continued funding of the Afghan and Iraqi wars while calling for...